Ice Breaker Ideas for High School Reunions

Sometimes having an activiity that opens up conversation can help get a party started. (Image: Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images)

High school reunions can be a stressful experience. Whether it’s for a 10, 20 or 25 year reunion, icebreakers can help get the conversations going between people you haven’t seen in years. An icebreaker is an activity that relaxes the tension and nervousness that may be being felt in the room. Returning to a social dynamic that you have left behind decades earlier can be a little nerve wracking for some.

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Name That Picture

Project pictures from the yearbook onto a screen. See if the audience can identify the person in the picture or the event being depicted. You could also use pictures of newsworthy events of that year, movies, or bands.

Song and Artist

Print the titles of some of the popular songs of your class year onto sheets of paper. Print the artists who sang those songs on other sheets of paper. As members enter, tape one or the other to their shirts. The goal is for each participant with a title on their shirt to find the participant with the corresponding artist on theirs.

Jeopardy

Write a series of 40 different game show type questions in eight different categories. The questions should reflect a topic based on people or events in the class year for the reunion. Some good categories to use include students, teachers, news events, music, movies or sports. The entire group can be divided into three groups or you can play on stage with three volunteers.

Straight-Faced Liar

Have each participant write down on a sticker two truths and one lie. The goal is to then have each person guess which statements are truths and which is the lie on another person's sticker. This is a classic icebreaker that can get people talking to each other and conversing rather quickly as they explain the reason for the statements they chose.

In Common

Have each table of participants write down all things that each of them have in common. How many of them are married, have kids or pets make good starting points. After about 20 minutes or so, find the table that has the longest list of things in common and give them a prize.

M&Ms Get to Know You

This will work best in small groups. Dump a few bags of M&Ms into a large bowl and let participants take as many as they wish, with the instruction that they are not to eat them just yet. After each person has taken their fill, inform them that they must share one fact about themselves for each M&M they took.

Other People Are Reading

I Have, You Haven’t

During introductions, each participant is asked to share something that they have done that not anyone else has. If one other person in the audience can honestly say that they have done that something too, he must keep trying until they find something no one else has done.

Memory Jigsaw Puzzle

Enlarge a photo of an event or person relevant to the reunion. Create a jigsaw puzzle using this picture with enough pieces for each person to have one. Have everyone scramble to work together and assemble the puzzle.